There are thousands of books about how to work and deliberate together. There’s also a subgenre headed by Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Machiavelli’s The Prince. Most would consider the unscrupulous implementation of these guides to be unethical, but as Richard Buskirk advised, even the scrupulous need to know how others might try to manipulate them. Two of my favorites in this genre include Nancy Sylvester’s The Guerrilla Guide to Robert’s Rules and Buskirk’s Frontal Attack.

Buskirk died just as I was beginning my professional career and his book encapsulated his experiences from when I was born, but his 118 tactics are as relevant as ever. I find it a shame that the book isn’t freely available, so I provide my notes for the benefit of the scrupulous.